Lawn mowers that carry a large rotary cutting deck beneath the frame of the mower are well known. The cutting deck is often positioned between a pair of front wheels and a pair of rear drive wheels. When the mower is a riding mower in which an operator sits on a seat located on the frame of the mower, the cutting deck is often positioned beneath at least a portion of the operator's body. This type of cutting deck is sometimes referred to as a belly mounted cutting deck or a mid-mount cutting deck.
Cutting decks of this type usually have a plurality of rotary cutting blades disposed across the width of the deck. The cutting blades rotate about vertical axes and have sharpened cutting edges that rotate in a substantially horizontal cutting plane. As the blades rotate about their vertical axes, grass is cut by impact with the cutting edges of the blades. Cutting decks of this type are called rotary cutting decks because of the rotary nature of the cutting blades.
Cutting decks of this type are also usually suspended beneath the frame of the mower by some type of deck suspension system. The deck suspension system is often vertically adjustable to raise and lower the cutting deck relative to the frame of the mower and thus relative to the ground. This is to adjust the height of cut of the mower. When the cutting deck is lifted to be closer to the mower and further from the ground, the grass is cut at greater heights, and vice versa.
Many different deck suspension systems have been used to mount such cutting decks to the frame of a mower. Almost all such systems have various arrangements of pivotal links, arms, rods, brackets, and the like for suspending the deck beneath the frame of the mower. In addition to being adjustable to provide different heights of cut, such deck suspension systems often allow the cutting deck to pitch up and down or to roll from side to side to accommodate different ground contours. In other words, if one corner of the deck is forced up because of encountering a bump in the ground, it is desirable for that corner of the deck to be able to rise to follow the contour. This prevents the mower from scalping the grass as it travels over the bump. The deck suspension also restricts deck motion front to rear so that tension is maintained on the deck drive belt when a belt and pulley system or the like is used to rotate the cutting blades.
However, the space beneath the frame of the mower in which the cutting deck is carried is quite limited. The task of removing or installing the mower deck in this tight or limited space is difficult. The operator has to be able to reach under the frame of the mower and get to all the different connection points between the deck suspension system and the cutting deck. Then, the operator usually has to use a wrench or some other tool to unbolt or unscrew the connectors between the cutting deck and the deck suspension system. This is not an easy task in most cases.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,956,932 to Schmidt purports to disclose a cutting deck that is removable from beneath the mower frame without using tools. One end of the deck connects to one or more pivotal links using what is termed “quick release” pins. The other end of the deck has some slotted brackets that hook onto a pivotal bar carried on the frame of mower. Once the deck is released from the pivotal links by removing the quick release pins, the mower deck may be slid in a direction that pulls the slotted brackets off the bar to release the other end of the deck.
While Schmidt's cutting deck is theoretically easier to remove than other known cutting decks, removing the deck is not quite as simple as it appears. The reason for this is that part of the height of cut adjustment mechanism obstructs easy removal of the cutting deck from beneath the frame of the mower even after the quick release pins are removed. Thus, in addition to removing the quick release pins and pulling the slotted brackets off the bar, Schmidt requires an intermediate step of repositioning the height of cut adjustment mechanism and the pivotal links themselves so that they are moved clear of the cutting deck. This intermediate repositioning step is a multi-part operation that requires the operator to push up on various vertical lift rods, to then manually slide the lift rods up along the length of the slotted portions of the pivotal links, and to then operate the height of cut adjustment system to lift the lift rods and the pivotal links up out of the way of the mower deck.